Strategies to find your ‘encore’ career

You’ve heard of the “encore career”—the idea of a midlife transition to new, more meaningful work. But, as good as that sounds, how can you go about effecting that change in your own life?

In her new book, “The Encore Career Handbook,” Marci Alboher aims to offer a guide for making that transition.

Plenty of people appear eager to make the switch: About 9 million people aged 44 to 70 are working encore careers now, and another 31 million seek that type of change, according to research from Encore.org, a nonprofit think tank and one of the main proponents of the idea of the “encore career.” Alboher is a vice president at Encore.org.

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“This really is a budding movement,” Alboher said. “With 10,000 people turning 60 every day, encore careers have the potential to change the face of work and the arc of life. The encore pioneers I speak to are a lot like the early feminists—breaking down barriers, writing the rules as they go, and paving the way for future generations to follow.”

An encore career isn’t simply a new job later in life. It’s a career that aims to help the greater good. The subtitle of Alboher’s book is: “How to make a living and a difference in the second half of life.”

That said, the book can provide a useful framework for anyone itching to make a career transition, whether or not it’s likely to help society. Read: Boomers changing careers?

And you don’t necessarily need to be on the verge of retirement to find the message appealing. At a recent bookstore event in San Francisco, where I interviewed Alboher on the topic of encore careers, about a third of the audience appeared to in their 40s or younger.

Take Mike Normant. Normant, 49, spent more than two decades in the corporate world, most recently as a senior leader of management training.

Then, as he puts it, “life kicked him in the ass.” First, a divorce. Then, his ex-wife suffered a serious illness, and he helped her through it. Then, his mother died. “It became clear to me that I needed to rethink what I was doing in my life,” he said.

So, in 2011, the San Francisco-based Normant decided to take three months off. Those three months turned into a year of exploration, introspection—and a lot of reading. The result: Normant is building his own management-training and leadership-development consulting business, even as he also eyes a separate line of work: coaching people as they navigate midlife changes.

“Longer term, my goal is to help coach people through those midlife transitions,” said Normant, who recently completed a coaching certification program.

Normant is a little younger than the people Encore.org tends to target. But, he said, the idea of doing good, even as you collect a paycheck, is appealing to people of all ages.

“I do believe there’s a shift taking place, that’s more society-wide and across the generations, that’s about making a difference, making an impact,” he said. “More people are starting to reevaluate their relationship with money. How much do you need to be happy?” he said.

“I do believe there are people in their 20s and 30s who are saying, ‘I don’t want to do what I saw my parents do and kill themselves for a career. I want something with more meaning and more social impact’ …that part of the story is more generation-neutral.”

The money question

For her book, Alboher interviewed hundreds of people who made the switch to an encore career. Thus, readers will find a slew of instructive examples. Plus, the book is full of useful resources to tap, and exercises and quizzes to help you figure out where you want to be and how to get there.

Still, there’s no getting around the fact that changing careers is not easy. “The Encore Career Handbook” offers a practical outline of how to try to turn your next stage into an encore career—but a book can’t do the hard work. It’s up to you to take the time to figure out whether you’ve got the resources, skills and energy to make this type of change happen in your life.

An Encore career may or may not mean a pay cut—some of the people cited in Alboher’s book ended up earning more money—but you’ll need a savings backstop.

According to an Encore.org survey cited by Alboher, 67% of people in encore careers faced an income gap as they transitioned, and 70% of those people said the gap lasted six months or more.

For his part, Normant said he had some savings from his previous career. “I had enough where I was able to drain savings for a year and not freak out.” It doesn’t hurt that he’s worked with a financial adviser for years.

Perhaps equally important: Normant changed his attitude toward tapping his savings. Being able to do that without fear took time, he said. “Before going through this transition, I would have not felt comfortable,” he said. “I would have said, ‘No, I can’t touch this.’”

“Something shifted,” he said, such that he could say, “I’m not going to go broke and I’m confident in my own ability to get back on my feet and be cash-flow positive again, that I owe it to myself to invest in myself. And I’ve never been happier.”

“There’s a lot of inner work that goes on,” said Normant. “There’s a lot of awareness of how much of our life is built on stories that we tell ourselves, how much is built on habit, starting to shift those internal stories makes a huge difference.”

In many ways, an encore career is a leap of faith. But, along with fear, that jump can also bring excitement and a profound sense of satisfaction.

“I don’t know where I’ll be in five years,” Normant said. “I just know it’ll be on my terms.”

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